Durant: Celtics, Lakers comments ‘disrespectful’

Oklahoma City Thunder star Kevin Durant, who wrapped up the NBA scoring title Wednesday night, responded to comments from the coach of the Thunder’s first-round playoff opponent by calling them “disrespectful.” In comments that should sound familiar to Celtics fans, Lakers coach Phil Jackson said Durant gets preferential treatment from officials. Responded Durant in The Oklahoman: “Ever since [Kevin Garnett] said something, everybody’s been questioning how I get to the line. If you watch our games, you wouldn’t question it. the NBA should put us on national TV more, I guess.”

Durant said Jackson’s comments fired him up more. “Because it’s taking away from what I do,’ Durant said. “That’s a part of my game, getting to the free throw line and being aggressive. If you say that I get superstar calls or I get babied by the refs, that’s just taking away from how I play. That’s disrespectful to me. I don’t disrespect nobody in this league. I respect every coach, every player, everybody. I never say anything bad about anybody else or question why they do this or do that. So for them to say that about me, I don’t even want to use no foul language.”

Durant said he does not expect Jackson’s comments to influence the referees.

“If the refs pay attention to that and change how they call things because of that, that’s terrible,’ Durant said. “That’s terrible to the game of basketball and to us. If that happens, then [coach] Scotty [Brooks] could talk, too. Or any other coach could talk, too, just so the refs could switch everything up. But I doubt they do that. “They’re smarter than that, and they have more skills than that as refs. So I don’t really worry about it too much.’